Anybody run their Fishman Fluences @18V?

[Rex Rocker]

What can I expect if do the 18V mod on my Fluences?

EMG's tend to get a bit more lively: Slightly more highs and lows and slightly less compression.

I don't hear the Fluence preamp clip (at least not as bad as EMG's @9V), so i wonder what difference it would make.

Thanks!

 

[Faded Abyss]

When you say clip, do you attribute it to compression?

Ken Susi speaks to this in an interview and says that fluence pickups were designed to not have to need to mod them to get more headroom. I think he said you wouldn’t benefit from it at all.

I haven’t done the 18v mod with emgs personally but I have done a pickup swap between an 81 and a fluence modern and can say that the difference in dynamics is remarkable. You can really dig in with the moderns and get noticeable difference in pick attack and have control over it whereas the emg’s (9v) wouldn’t care if you picked with brute force or softly.. just the same palm mutes.

the moderns have insane output.. it’s ridiculous but that’s okay because can just put in a jumper to make the output -6 db from the hot output. This might factor in to what your asking in case you’re speaking to clipping downstream

 

[Rex Rocker]

When you say clip, do you attribute it to compression?

I mean when you strum EMG's hard, you can hear them distort. Even if you roll the volume control on the guitar back, they distort if you strum hard because their internal preamp (which is before the volume knob in the signal chain) distorts because the headroom is not all that much.

Funny, I didn't find the output that insane. Maybe a bit more than the standard 81 @9V, especially because, like you say, they're more dynamic when you really dig in, but I still feel Blackouts, Hets, and even the 57 are louder.

 

[Rex Rocker]

Then again, there are a few revisions of the Fluence Modern floating around. Perhaps they went for a more reasonable output level in the later.

 

[Faded Abyss]

It’s a truly amazing pickup. I have had some problems with them creating odd artifacts in my DI’s for riffs but other than that, they are perfect.

You most likely wouldn’t want to bother modding them considering they already offer everything from gain reduction, a LPF, different voicings, legit single coil tones..

Then again, it’s not like I’m going to sell my Strat with single coils because of them, but for what they are, they do well.

particularly for leads. They can be buttery smooth yet cut at the same time.